Religion has been developed over many centuries, people are introduced to the house of prayer as children and it has become part of every day life, embedded deep into most cultures across the world. Due to the nature of the religion and the power of the leaders of the various faiths, laws and governing are affected immensely and very noticeably.

Most of our greatest leader’s that have had a religious upbringing ask god for forgiveness or for strength. In certain cases they will obey the rules laid down by the leaders of their faith. The religious leaders often lampoon and criticize politicians for corruption, poverty and for disobeying religious law. But the religions are actually the cause of many of the Worlds problems. Caused by priests and religious leaders thinking that they can forgive peoples sins and that God will forgive any sin.

Its time that priest and the religious leaders learn to look through the eyes of the God they believe in.

Looking through Gods eye’s
One only needs to know the character of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim God to be able to look through the eyes of God. Ever caring all knowing and very wise! The Christian faith makes it to easy to be forgiven, the Jewish and Muslim faith also allow for Gods forgiveness but on a more, stricter base.

The Laundry
Gods house of prayer is being treated like a Laundry, dirty linen in clean linen out!

Examples:

Man walks into house of prayer: he prays to God “Please God forgive me” God is listening, Man states “I have committed adultery, please forgive me for my sin” God thinks, “This man is asking forgiveness for cheating on his wife? This is the sixth time!” God says in annoyance “All these people are my children including this mans wife I deeply regard her feelings on this issue.” “Before he can be forgiven by me, he has to be forgiven by his wife!” Man walks away from his house of prayer where he thought he lightened his load, ready to sin again.

High Ranking government official walks into house of prayer: he prays to God “Please God forgive me” God is listening, “I stole money from the government purse, please forgive me for I am weak, I needed the money to send my children to school” God states to him self “This man keeps on asking forgiveness for many similar things, he has too many people to atone too, its an helpless situation, I just cant forgive this, he has hurt too many of my children” The official walks away from his house of prayer where he thought he lightened his load, ready to sin many times again.

A woman walks into house of prayer: she prays to God “Please God, I would like a rich husband to support me and buy jewellery and all the luxury items that I’ve always dreamed of”. God simply doesn’t listen to selfish people! But the Devil Does! The woman walks away from his house of prayer to misguidedly wait for God to grant her wish.

Once you learn to look through the eyes of God it becomes very simple to work out your Gods answers to prayers. The problem is have the religions opened a gate to hell in their own temples, church’s, mosque’s, synagogue or prayer mats?

The Religious leaders should start teaching the faithful how to ask forgiveness and how to pray unselfishly, this could be the solution to fighting corruption, crime and alleviate poverty. They could also have a solution to create peace and harmony through out the world.

The Catholic Church is one of the biggest offenders the have created the biggest chain of Laundry’s in the World, plus the Vatican laws all need to be reviewed especially those that hamper population control and the spreading of AID’s. The Pope needs to do his job as the spokesman of god; he simply needs to be brave and wise enough to look through the eyes of God. He needs to close the gates of hell within the Catholic Church, holy water, prayer alone is not answer to a very big problem concerning the welfare and souls of his flock.

The-Nisk

I concider every religion man made.

And I can't imagine it not being so concidering it's man who follows it in the first place!

silkmesh

Yes your very right

odinstag

The-Nisk wrote:

I concider every religion man made.

And I can't imagine it not being so concidering it's man who follows it in the first place!

I couldn't put it better myself.

It is time to get past silly superstitions as a base for morality. This "Big Guy in the Sky" hokus pokus has been enslaving us for way to long.

Yantaal

i was going to say that every religioin is man made but it seems that everybody else suggests that, sooo....

everyone invents a religion to ke the kids in place and anyone else gullable enough to beleev it.

ciao

maclui

I think very few people know what their religion is about exactly. They know that God is merciful so GOD may forgive every mistake a man commits. They know that God is a very superior being so his love is way grater for his children so HE won´t care that much for our sins.
People are thought certain facts about their religion, we are taught about sin and punishment, we are taught about ways to avoid punishment and they best way and the only one too is to repent.

Quote:

Man walks away from his house of prayer where he thought he lightened his load, ready to sin again.

This cannot happen in Catholic religion because it does not matter that you confess your sins at a church, the very first thing a Catholic must do is repent from the bottom of the heart. Confession is not really mandatory. I dont think that a Catholic that walks out of a house of prayer after confession feels free to sin again. That is not how it works.

Quote:

A woman walks into house of prayer: she prays to God “Please God, I would like a rich husband to support me and buy jewellery and all the luxury items that I’ve always dreamed of”. God simply doesn’t listen to selfish people! But the Devil Does! The woman walks away from his house of prayer to misguidedly wait for God to grant her wish.

I like this, Devil is listening, so be careful with what you wish it better be something good.

Catholic Church is against abortion and and contraceptive devices because it is against life the way nature decided it to be. Nature says that living beings must reproduce, and God says we must love each other and reproduce ourselves. And the Pope cannot say something different because those facts dont change with ages and the flow of time.

By the Way I did read the whole insightful post.

silkmesh

The bible states not god!

It did not state we should breed like rabbits, there is no mention of birth control or that its wrong.

Just because the present emperor of Rome and the holy see hold up to the Catholic Laws and Rules concerning conception does not mean that its Gods Law.

Many people suffer poverty because of this stupid view from Rome also Aids is rampant and killing Millions of Catholic followers.

And do not tell me I a wrong as I live in a place surrounded by a poverty that is not helped by this stupid Catholic Rule. When I question these people here in the Philippines and ask them if they have read the Bible 99% say no. But if I ask about contreception they state its wrong because the Pope says it is. Ahhhhhhh it anoys me that they "Wala ko ka subut".

These people find it hard to place a meal on the table for 9 or sometimes 12 children with low employment and very low wages. When you eat you lunch today just remember that Millions will go without due to the stupidness of the leaders of the Catholic Faith.

Regards

Bob

livilou

Actually, silkmesh, I understand what you're trying to say, and have to say that in a way, I agree with you. I wonder if God actually does forgive people that continue to commit the same sin over and over again.

The Bible does state "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin"

Bikerman

maclui wrote:

Catholic Church is against abortion and and contraceptive devices because it is against life the way nature decided it to be. Nature says that living beings must reproduce, and God says we must love each other and reproduce ourselves. And the Pope cannot say something different because those facts dont change with ages and the flow of time.

I think this is wrong on several levels.
1) Nature is Darwinian Natural Selection - brutal, callous, red in tooth and claw. Mankind should not set his goals as low as that surely. Nature says that the weak die and the strong live, but I don't see anyone proposing that we should adopt this part of nature (thank goodness). I see this sort of cherry picking a lot and I think it is both disingenuous and misguided - the proponent simply singles out parts of nature that conform to a particular belief and uses them as if they actually support it. Man is the only animal who can plan and choose not to be bound by Natural Selection and other natural processes and, like Richard Dawkins, I have no doubt that natural selection is what produced us and equally I have no doubt that humans should strive to surpass that very mechanism and aim for something better.
2) Facts DO change with ages and the flow of time as is evident if you study history. What would be considered acceptable, even normal in one era is frequently seen as barbaric and unacceptable in a later era. This is a natural process of human development, surpassing the natural system of selection that now no longer dictates human lifestyle and aspiration. It could be called post-evolutionary development I think, in the sense that we now choose many of the things that nature once imposed without choice.
On the specific issue of Vatican position on contraception - it is clear to me that the Pope is being urged to change the current position on condoms and I will be quite surprised if the official church dogma on this matter does not change in the next few years. The behaviour of certain clergy in Africa has deeply damaged the Church in many quarters and opinion, even within the church, is very much against the current position on condoms. Many, if not most, Catholics choose to ignore Church teaching on the issue of condoms - certainly in the West - as is evidenced by declining birth rates with no evidence of any corresponding decline in sexual activity.

You do not live in a poverty stricken Catholic country what the hell do you know.

The Catholic Church want over population its all to do with money you jerk. The Pope will not change the stupid rules.

The facts are that the local Catholics here do not use condoms, the over population problem is very very apparent as in South America and every other Catholic state.

What do you know about life other than a cozy little hole in Cheshire.

Ahhh stupid man.

Regards

Bikerman

silokmesh wrote:

]The facts are that the local Catholics here do not use condoms, the over population problem is very very apparent as in South America and every other Catholic state.

Here is a listing of the top 20 Catholic countries (ranked by percentage of population who are Catholic) together with current birth rate and ranking in terms of birthrate. The ranking is out of 242 countries with 242 having the lowest birthrate and 1 having the highest.
Make your own minds up.

And because I want to be thorough, here is a listing of the top 10 countries by birthrate together with their ranking by % of the population who are Catholic.
(Those countries with no Catholics are not given a ranking for clarity).

Both sets of figures I have used in the compilation are unchecked since I have no secondary sources to hand so I would add a small disclaimer that I believe them to be correct, I have not altered them apart from ranking as specified and I believe the sources to be reputable(ish). If there are any errors I would be happy correct them if pointed out. I am also aware that the analysis is not statistically rigorous, but I believe it to be statistically significant in the context used - again I will be happy to correct if evidence to the contrary is produced.

PS - Philippines - % Catholics 81.03 Birthrate 24.89 Ranking 74

silkmesh

You have missed a lot of countries Chris, and your list does not look good as it is.

You really need to come and live amongst the poverty as I do. There has been a lot of propaganda about over population does not cause poverty mainly from the church. But in reality when there is poverty already its not good if the population is growing. No jobs no hope and the education system suffers it gets overloaded, the student in each class rooms range between 60 – 90 students to one teacher already.

There is a big problem, but life is improving here because of the cheap labor factor. More and more Filipino’s are working abroad.

But once the population rises another 10 million or so in the next 3 years or so, there is going to be big problems here.

Hardly anyone here wants to use contraceptives due to religious conviction. Some of the things I see here and around the world are pitiful.

I really do not want to argue about this any more as the whole dam things sad. I can only help who I can.

This is really something you have very little knowledge about as you only see what you read about it.

Regards

Bikerman

silkmesh wrote:

You have missed a lot of countries Chris, and your list does not look good as it is.

I provided links to all the source data which lists every country. As for my list not looking good....LOL. I would say it comprehensively refutes your previous 'posting' which was offensive as well as fallacious.

Quote:

I really do not want to argue about this any more as the whole dam things sad. I can only help who I can.

Whatever. I'm not really interested. I responded purely to point out that your personal attack was based on a fallacy. Unless you can provide some statistics to support your comments then I will consider the matter closed. I do not normally respond to abusive postings, since they rarely contain anything worth commenting on, but since you questioned my integrity as well as my intelligence I thought it necessary to point out that nothing I posted was untrue.

Quote:

This is really something you have very little knowledge about as you only see what you read about it.

As someone educated by the Jesuit and Salesian orders from 5-18 I think I know as much about the Catholic church as I need to. I never claimed to have special knowledge about the Philippines - but I do know something about the Catholic church and that was what I was debating when you shoved your nasty little posting in. If you'd actually taken the trouble to read any of my postings instead of firing out insults then you would know that I am an atheist and a very strong critic of the Catholic church but you prefer to post abusive replies rather than actually engage in debate so I suppose I should not be surprised.

silkmesh

So now I know.

An alta boy turned atheist, wonder why?

Gay priest troubles?

Wow Chris open up your heart!

You have been a pain on this forum for quiet a while I would guess.

Its sad really

Your anti christian and anti anybody that makes sense? What made you change your mind about your brainwashing. Did you get brainwashed into a scientific no god does not exist.

Or are you trying to look clever on the internet and no one things you are off.

I am very sorry for you.

Regards

HereticMonkey

Three quickies for silkmesh:

1) Catholic Church/Not Changing Rules: Given that the Catholic Church just eliminated an entire plane of existence (Limbo) and the sheer number of changes over the last century alone, I don't think that charging the Catholic Church with immutability is a fair charge...

2) Population/Wealth: There is no correlation between population and personal wealth. There is, however, a correlation between how you treat your lower class and how much poverty you have. Interestingly, the Catholic Church has always championed the lower class, even when the local government doesn't. In other words: Take the church out of the picture, and I bet the situation would be even worse in the Phillipines...

3) I would advise dropping your attack on the so-called Book Religions on this forum. Besides your remarks in this forum, combined with your "New Religion", as well as your remarks in this thread and your admonishment to "Read your books!" aimed specifically at three religions, but ignoring other religions with a book, is creating a hostile environment. Back down before a mod talks to you...

HM

silkmesh

Hey HerticMonkey,

Your brain washed pal, YOU live in a nice society and have a very limited view on life. Reality is living with the problem and experiencing the world and the cultures and not just reading the things that people want to brainwash you with.

If people can not find work or can not get work because they are not educated due to being poor and the rich do not pay there taxes and they are corrupt and think they can be forgiven for all their sins. The Church does not send their priest out amongst the flock but expects the flock to come to the church and pay for baptism, confirmation, marriage, certification and funerals plus each Mass. Priest have beautiful car's and eat very well and live in nice accommodation. A church that wants high population to keep its powerful business going.

A high population certainly causes more poverty as the more children these people have the less food on the table.

I have had constant offers from mothers for me and my wife to adopt their newly born babies. I have paid for innumerous amount of milk and rice to help people.

My book will be published on the Web and will be free access; I will not be making any money out of the Book. A book I hope will help to create peace though I don’t have great expectations. It’s my pebble, my stone a petty try to wake up the sheep.

The moderater is welcome to expell me from the forum as there are many other forums I can use for research. I am sure I am doing no harm in fact maybe I am doing a bit of good by making you all think. Also bringing interest into the forum.

Best Regards

Tex_Arcana

Getting back to the original premise of the post......

Yes, I do believe that all religion is created by humans (that is unless some of the more intelligent species also have religious concepts but I'll leave that up to the dolphins and their celestial beings). However, I think maybe you are middle eastern based religion fixated (probably a cultural thing). If you had a base of reference in what some would call "the more primative religions" you might realize that all religion has it's roots not in controlling the masses (I guess that comes later with more advanced theology) but in the need for human kind to come to grips with The Unknowable Force that is thinly evidenced through out nature (don't know if you have ever climbed a mountain rather then justs looked at a photo someone took from a mountain top, but let me tell you, it's pretty hard once you get there not to feel a but of awe at creation).

My point is that yes religion is a human creation and yes there are clergy within that religious base that will abuse whatever power that religion grants them, not for some concept of God but for their own glory (while proclaiming glory to God). The real challenge is not to let the ugliness of those kind fill you with bitterness and cause you to lose site of religions real purpose. That is to help you understand and feel closer to a higher spiritual plane of existence. If one religion is so full of crap that you can no longer find that higher spiritual ground then there are thousands more out there. even making up your own personal religion is no more or less valid then what's already out there.

Religion is not all about enforced morality, and corrupt clergy.
Religion is about your personal relationship with whatever Deity you hold within yourself.

silkmesh

I totally agree, but I am researching Middle Eastern religion to cut the rough edges off concerning my book on just that subject.

I also have good knowledge of most other religions to include Native American Indians.

But seeing I am writing about a western environment that does include the Middle East as that’s where their main religions originate.

As a pantheist I feel nearer to my creator and I do appreciate nature and have in fact climbed mountains and seen incredible sites, in fact I see a magnificent incredible sunset only to be seen here in the Tropics (very rarely) whilst traveling from the island of Bohol to Cebu. It was just if the whole sky was on fire, reds orange, and yellows so vivid.

Glad to have your response

Best Regards

HereticMonkey

silkmesh: I have no idea how to reply to your post. Seriously: It's so far removed from reality, that all I can do is wish you luck with the book.

I mean, seriously: I have no idea what reality you live in.

High population doesn't necessarily mean that a large percentage of your population lives like homeless people. China has a high population, and yet few people (as expressed as a percentage of the population) don't have access to the basics (home, job, food). When it does happen (such as in Brazil), it's usually either because a local industry no longer exists, or people that lived in the country have been forced to live in the cities. I feel sorry about the situation in the Phillipines, but I don't think that high population is the sole, or even major cause.

And we've all had numerous offers to deal with orphans or buy rice. It's late night television! Also, I've done the homeless thing; I've gotten a better situation since then. As for the "brainwashing", please consult a dictionary as regards "heretic" sometime...

As for the main topic: Although I'll concede that religion is man-made, it is all about trying to understand the world from a mystical rather than scientific perspective. Strangely, most of them got it right on certain levels, and the science behind some of them are on target. It's interesting some of the health benefits as we explore the various texts more thoroughly...

HM

silkmesh

What you know about reality, your not at the front line to see everything your saying is pathetic as many others that sit in armchairs reading the times or the dreaded sun.

how the bloody hell your making such crap up.

I had enough of your trying to look clever muck, get a life, read the following and bloody learn something you brainwashed brain dead idiot.

I think now may be time for a moderator to have a look at this thread perhaps? I say so in public, rather than in a pm, simply on a general principle that I do not believe in censoring free debate, so where it is done it should be done openly.

HoboPelican

READ THIS

This topic is getting a bit out of hand. I am NOT going to close it right now, but I AM issuing a general warning. Obviously there is major disagreement on basic points, and that is fine. This forum has people from all over the world and encompasses an incredible range of beliefs and thought and, as a result, you are often going to find people that will never agree with you, no matter how rational and obvious you feel your point is. While this can be frustrating, we all need to accept this and respect our fellow members. When you get to the point that you feel the need to insult your opposer, you need to step back and agree to disagree.

To make it as clear as possible, insulting other members WILL NOT be tolerated and continued insults will result in a permanent ban. The applicable rule is:

Quote:

Posts, avatars, signatures and usernames must not degrade, insult or disrespect other users or groups of people.

Heated debate is fine. Insults are not.

Tumbleweed

silkmesh wrote:

I had enough of your trying to look clever muck, get a life, read the following and bloody learn something you brainwashed brain dead idiot.

How did we get to the point where you can voice your opinions on the internet ?
Have we reached the point of global communication with the help of religion , or in spite of religion ?
What effect has religion had on the formation of communitys ?

silkmesh

???

No comment

Regards

Tumbleweed

No comment......on all points , including you own commadment.. oh well

silkmesh

No comment because I thought you where trying to goad me into loosing my cool.

but like a good boy I counted to ten. Now I see the funny side.

I dont think I broke commandment 8 as I wasnt spreading rumors just being rude.

But anyway I will seek the high priest (The local barman) bow 20 times and say a prayer to the fire god (normal ritual before drinking good whisky).

Like everbody else preaching in the religion game I may be proving myself to be a hypocrite

Thanks for your humor, If I die tonight I will die happy.

Best Regards

Have a nice day

Tumbleweed

If you die tonight I will be happy also

... now that was a joke ...... So funny side over

So you didnt break No 8..... you were just rude and maybe hypocritical, ok I agree

How about those other points ?
Are they mute because we are moving forward and not backward, or should we access the good and the bad and see if it truly is worth breaking the status quo ?

silkmesh

I am losing my mind not my cool

Its all this brain washing

If I die to night and I am reincarnated, I will haunt the barman

Whats the name of the paranod Robot in Hitch Hikers Guide to the ?

The whisky is great

Cheers

Regards

Bikerman

In order...
That would be Marvin the paranoid android.
The drink would be a Pan-Galactic GargleBlaster, not whisky.
There is, as yet, no scientific evidence that you have a mind so I would advise against washing .